Death hangs over Wenders film with Dennis Hopper

By Mike Collett-White

CANNES (Reuters) - Death hangs over the new movie by German director Wim Wenders, whose "Palermo Shooting" starring U.S. actor Dennis Hopper had its premiere at the Cannes film festival on Saturday.

Hopper plays the cloaked figure of death who stalks the main protagonist -- a famous photographer who seeks to find answers to life's fundamental questions during a trip to the Italian city of Palermo where he goes for a fashion shoot.

"I found myself in a little town in Italy, in Sicily, and in the morning I opened the newspapers and they told me that (Swedish director) Ingmar Bergman had died," Wenders told reporters.

He recalled that the very next morning in Gangi, a small town near Palermo where much of the movie was shot, he was told by a policeman that Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni had also died.

Both Antonioni and Bergman died on July 30, 2007.

"I wrote that morning in my notebook, you can only dedicate this film to those two," added Wenders, whose movie divided critics after its press screening in Cannes.

Hopper, best known for his mean and mad roles, said he was resigned to his image.

"I think it's appropriate for death and Dennis Hopper to say 'Why am I always cast as the bad guy?"' Hopper said, referring to a line in "Palermo Shooting."